In a retail store, a customer must wait in lines to have their items scanned or otherwise tallied to transact the resulting purchase (i.e., checkout). Often a store will have many checkout lanes to expedite this process. Unfortunately, checkout lanes are almost never fully staffed and some lanes seem to move faster than others do. Customers may search for an open lane by roaming around the checkout area creating extra traffic. When multiple open lanes are found, a customer must rely on instinct to choose a lane. A need therefore exists for a device, system, and method to provide customers with situational awareness about the checkout lanes to help them choose a checkout lane.